The Mexican American War

[pbfoot]

Seems as if Scott did pretty well at Lundy's Lane also. Regardless he emerged from the War of 1812 as probably the most professional and effective general officer of the US Army. If you study the Mexican War, his handling of his troops from Vera Cruz to Mexico City was masterful. Of couse he had a lot of help in that campaign from the likes of Robert Lee, Thomas Jackson, James Longstreet, the Texas Rangers, not to mention a fellow named Grant.

The Lundys Lane battlefield is about 2 blocks away from my house a lot of that war occured close to me

 

[renrich]

That must be fascinating to live that close to a very historical battlefield. It is no wonder you are well versed on that battle. I used to live in San Antonio which I have heard described as the most fought over city in North America. Have also lived in the locale where a number of fights with Amerindians took place.

 

[mkloby]

Many of the generals during the War Of Northern Aggression went to West Point together. Longstreet and Grant were there at the same time and were close friends. Lee was somewhat older than most of the other better known ones but was the super. there when for instance, Hood was a student. Interesting about Lee's description of Hood, "very industrious on the battlefield, careless off of it." I believe that at that time all students at WP were trained as engineers. As pbfoot says, early on WP was not near what it later became. A fellow named Thayer reformed it. Incidently Lee was one of the few graduates of WP to never get a demerit. He was known as the Marble Man when he went there. Lee was in his 50s during the war, Jackson was 38 when he died. Hood was 28 and already a general. To show what dire straits our boys were in, when Jackson went down under "friendly fire" one reason they knew who had done it was that he was shot by smooth bore musket balls not Minie balls. This was the spring of 1863, two years after the war had begun and some of our units were still using relics from the War of 1812. Those confounded British were not sending us enough Enfields! Just kidding.

Reading that post makes me want to say... the south lost almost 150 years ago, get over it! How about this - have an industrial base before INSTIGATING a civil war! Crazy southerners!

Seriously though, I've had some good discussions about the civil war with some of the southerners in my units. It was an interesting, and quite unfortunate time in American history... alas this is a mex-am war thread.

I went up to San Antonio a couple weekends ago - very nice city. I grew up by Monmouth Battlefield, and used to live in Fredericksburg.

 

[renrich]

The Southrons were a little arrogant to get involved in a war with as few advantages as they had. It was tragic for them. As you know the Mexican War was sort of a prelude to the States War and the strife between the North and South was exacerbated by the annexation of Texas and the subsequent war with Mexico. Many of the people in the Northeast were against the Mexican War and that included Lincoln. As a native Texan I sometimes believe that Texas would have been wise to have remained a Republic. It is most interesting to read about the experiences of the various participants in the war in Mexico who later were major players in 61-65. Jackson was so enamored with Mexico that he learned the language. Longstreet was wounded in one of the assaults near Mexico City. Sam Walker, the man who saved Sam Colt's business and whom the Walker Colt was named after was killed at Churubusco (sic). Lee was almost shot on one of his scouting missions. Scott asked for Texas Rangers to cope with the Mexican irregulars who were playing hob with his logistics even though he detested the Ranger's lack of discipline and feral attitude toward the Mexicans. They did handle the problem of the guerillas however and earned the nickname of Los Diablos Tejanos. George Pickett was in on the storming of Mexico City. Braxton Bragg earned a big reputation with his field artillery when he was with Taylor and Jeff Davis led a regiment of Mississipi volunteers in Taylor's army. Probably the last time that Bragg ever did anything really good. There is a photograpic exhibit on the Mexican War in the Amon Carter Museum in Ft Worth. I think it is the earliest example of photographic work in a war, at least in this hemisphere. Extraordinary work.

 

[renrich]

Did you live in Fredricksburg, VA or Texas?.

 

[Medvedya]

This is a very uneducated comment. I am sure that all of the above mention places could easily withdraw from the US sphere of influence by simply voting to leave. That capability is not called "permanent colony". I know that there has been some effort in Puerto Rico to become independent but no vote has ever passed. No one will stop them if they do. They do not because they know that people all over the world would love to emigrate to the US but can't. They have all the benefits of being American without any drawbacks.

Stone me! I posted this two years ago! I don't deny what you say for an instant, (well, apart from the 'uneducated' bit) but if you look at the context it which it was posted it was to refute a single factual point that was raised by a 'former' member of the forum.

 

[mkloby]

Did you live in Fredricksburg, VA or Texas?.

Horribly delayed response, sorry abou that... I'm presently stationed at NAS Corpus Christi. I was stationed at MCB Quantico in 04-05, and lived in Fredericksburg part of that time.